Briefs

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, MILA KUNIS, ZOË KRAVITZ AMONG JEWS ON THIS YEAR’S TIME 100 LIST

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s Jewish president who has been leading his country during the Russian invasion that began in late February, has been named to Time magazine’s annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people. Zelensky was listed in the “Leaders” category, and his entry was written by U.S. President Joe Biden.

Several Jewish entertainers also made the list released Monday, May 23, including another with Ukrainian heritage: actress Mila Kunis, who immigrated from Chernivtsi to the United States at age 7 and launched a campaign that has raised over $36 million for Ukrainian refugee aid efforts. Other actors like Andrew Garfield, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Zoë Kravitz were included, as well as Saturday Night Live comedian Pete Davidson, who was just announced to be leaving after seven years on the show.

Taika Waititi, the Jewish-Maori director from New Zealand of JoJo Rabbit fame, had his entry written up by Jewish actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. In JoJo Rabbit, a Hitler Youth member finds out his mother (played by Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a Jewish girl in their attic.

Andy Jassy, who became CEO of Amazon last year, was named in the “Titans” category.

Other Jews who made it on the list include photographer and opioid crisis activist Nan Goldin, who led protests against museums’ ties to the Sackler family of Purdue Pharma, and David Zaslav, CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery. (JTA)

ISRAELI-OWNED EATERY IN LONDON HIT WITH ‘FREE PALESTINE’ GRAFFITI

Unidentified individuals spray-painted the words “free Palestine” on the facade of an Israeli-owned cafe in London.

The incident, which the owner Michael Levi suspects was an antisemitic hate crime, occurred on May 14 at Michaels Brasserie, the Jewish News of London reported.

The graffiti was painted there late at night on a Saturday, the report said.

Police arrived at the café and documented the incident and are looking into it, Levi told the Jewish News. Levi said that there was nothing Jewish about the cafe’s facade when it was vandalized.

“I can’t really get angry with people who choose this path. I just feel ashamed and hurt, and upset. We just try to live our lives doing the best we can…and then this,” he told the newspaper.

The café serves Middle Eastern foods popular in Israel and in Arab countries, including shakshuka, shawarma, and smoked eggplant. (JTA)

DOZENS OF ARRESTS BUT NO CASUALTIES REPORTED AFTER JERUSALEM DAY CLASHES

Jewish extremists shouted racist slogans and clashed with Palestinians during a heavily policed Jerusalem Day march, but there were no major injuries at an event that last year was among the spurs to a deadly conflict.

Police said 50,000 Jews marched through the Old City on Sunday, May 29, Jerusalem Day, the Hebrew calendar anniversary of Israel’s capture of the area in the 1967 Six-Day War. A record 2,600 Jews visited the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, which is also the site of a mosque enclave among the holiest in Islam.

A number of the Jewish marchers shouted “Death to Arabs,” reports said, and “may your villages burn.” Some Palestinians rushed the marchers, and there were fights. There were reports of minor injuries. Media reported police arrested about 50 people, most Palestinians.

Kann, Israel’s public broadcaster, reported Palestinians stoning vehicles and Jews attacking Palestinians with pepper spray. There were some minor injuries.

The day culminated with tens of thousands of Jews dancing at the Western Wall, the Jewish holy site that is adjacent to the Temple Mount.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he would not tolerate Jewish extremists who tried to provoke a conflict and had instructed police to arrest rioters. “The overwhelming majority of participants have come to celebrate but unfortunately there is a minority that has come to set the area ablaze, take advantage of the government’s strong position against Hamas threats, and trying to use force in order to ignite a conflict,” he said.

A number of marchers hoisted Israeli flags when they reached the Temple Mount, something that Hamas, the terrorist organization controlling the Gaza Strip, had warned could provoke rocket attacks. Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile system reportedly is on alert.

Hamas used the planned Jerusalem Day celebration last year as among its pretexts for launching rockets into Israel, sparking an 11-day conflict in which more than 230 Palestinians and 12 Israelis were killed.

Bennett, whose governing coalition is hanging by a thread, is eager to stem tensions ahead of a visit next month by President Joe Biden. The region has been roiled by a spate of deadly Palestinian terrorist attacks and unsettled by Israel’s recent announcement of new settlement building. (JTA)

BOYCOTT ADVOCATES CLAIM VICTORY AS GENERAL MILLS DIVESTS ITS ISRAELI DOUGH OPERATION

General Mills announced Tuesday, May 31 it would be fully divesting from a business venture in Israel that had operated in an East Jerusalem settlement, in a move pro-Palestinian activists celebrated as the result of their campaign against the food conglomerate.

The Minnesota-based company has operated a Pillsbury frozen-food factory in the Atarot Industrial Zone since 2002, in a joint venture with Israeli investment group Bodan Holdings. In a statement, the company said it would sell its majority stake in the venture back to Bodan as part of a larger international investment strategy.

General Mills’ statement did not mention politics and noted that the company had previously moved to sell off its European dough business, as well. The company did not return multiple requests for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The company has been a target of pro-Palestinian activists since it was included in a 2020 United Nations database of companies doing business in Israeli settlements.

American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-affiliated activist organization that has been pushing the company to end its Israel operations via a campaign called “No Dough For The Occupation,” took credit for the divestment in a statement.

“General Mills’ divestment shows that public pressure works even on the largest of corporations,” Noam Perry, a member of the group’s Economic Activism team, said in the statement.

The divestment carried echoes of another food producer’s Israel-related move: last year’s decision by ice-cream manufacturer Ben & Jerry’s to stop selling ice cream in “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” In that case, the decision was explicitly political, coming on the heels of Israel’s deadly conflict with Hamas.

And the blowback was swift, with Jewish groups and several state governments lining up to not only boycott Ben & Jerry’s products but also divest from its parent company, the British multinational conglomerate Unilever—in many cases citing anti-Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions laws to do so. (JTA)

IN JERUSALEM, IDENTICAL TWINS GIVE BIRTH TO BOYS ON THE SAME DAY

When they were born, Yael came first, and then came her twin sister, Avital.

The twins preserved that sequence 31 years later when they gave birth on the same day on Monday, May 30 to boys at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital.

That’s not where the coincidences stopped, according to a hospital news release and an interview the twins gave to Kikar HaShabbat, a religious news outlet. The sisters Yael Yishai and Avital Segel, who live in the Gush Etzion bloc in the West Bank, were each bearing a fourth child, and each had two girls and a boy already.

The nursing staff made sure the sisters shared a room, which they appreciated. “It was so much fun to be in the same room, with newborns,” Avital said.

The hospital noted that a similar event occurred in 1997. (JTA)